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Snapper dealer knows nothing


Chris727

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I stopped by one of the longtime snapper/toro/lawnboy dealers the other day and saw they had began selling the Snapper lawn tractors built by Simplicity. They had the Snapper version of the new regent. It seems the Snappers do not have the full width rear rollers on any of them but the tractors are nearly identical. I asked the salesman about them and he told me Toro builds Snapper and that MTD builds Toro. I tried to argue but gave up and left. Even the back of the brocure says Simplicity on it. I also saw something strange in Lowes, they have John Deere self propleled mowers which are identical to the new Snapper Easy Line,pretty good quality for in a box store but they are priced at $450. They even had the Hi-Vac style bag. So is a Briggs/Simplicity owned company now making stuff for Deere[:0]
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Yes , On the push mowers being made for Deere.Simplicity makes Snapper .Nobody else does as far as i know.
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Check AOL for recent debates on Snapper and WalMart. It appears the Snapper President, weather he be a Simplicity mogul or not. Has refused to continue his distribution to WalMart because of their price demands. He sounded like a tried and true Snapper President with his refusal to sacrifice the quality of his product for the sake of higher sales. I have not investigated this enough to know if this gentleman is a Simplicity President or a Snapper President. But it may be worth looking into.
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AFAIK,Lawn Boy bought Gilson,who was then purchased by Toro.Which is kind of a sore subject here in South Bend,after Toro purchased the local product,Wheel Horse,and shut the plant a few years later.
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This might be a rare case of the consumer getting his moneys worth,,if he buys a J.Deere mower built by Simplicity.Deere has been doing this for a long time now--selling their name and the actual product is a mystery.i have a 1989 J.D.826 snowblower ,not a bad machine,because it was made Ariens ,i've seen these go for pretty good $$$ on ebay because of the J.D. paint job,much lower resale if it were Ariens red.
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Kenny, I was editing my second response as I was perusing through other web sights. I knew that Wheel Horse, Gilson and Lawnboy were all owned by one company but I had no idea about Snapper or Simplicity being involved with the snapper riders.
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I have this........ [img]/club2/attach/zippovarga/LawnBoy1.JPG[/img] 1990 Gilson AKA Lawnboy that supports the merger of Lawnboy and Gilson. Then I have the supporting information about Toro buying out Lawnboy. But i've never seen where Snapper sold out to both Toro and Simplicity. Who is our resident PI here? Maynard??? Care to give it a whirl?
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http://www.corporate-ir.net/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?ticker=mtrm.ob&script=414&layout=-6&item_id=347961 http://www.simplicitymfg.com/news_room_4.php
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GREG!!!!!!!!!!! Well, at least it didnt go the other way!!!! Snapper is a great brand. Glad we um......."snapped" on to that one...lol.
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Talk about who made what.Gilson made many of Ford small tractors there was just a difference in sheet metal.Sort of like Ford and Mercury.The Gilsons are viewed as AMCs something you can't get parts for and Ford's are highly collectible.Go figure!!!! It's nice to hear the Simplicity may be getting involved with some high volume sales without taking their pants off to the box stores.Now that they are with Briggs it will be much more difficult for them to be beat up and they can maintain their high quality.
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I think the purchase of snapper was a great transaction for Simplicty. Simplcity with it's roller decks are really popular up in the cool season grass areas of the country. Many like the strips it leaves behind. In the south though, the varieties of grass tend not to take to lawn striping, thus Simplcity never really established much business down south. In this area, snapper has always had a huge and loyal following. Also makes sense why the snapper mowers do not have the lawn striping roller. It truely is a win win for both companies.
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My local snapper dealer was very pleased when they were bought by simplicity. His comment was that finally snapper would have a larger high horsepower tractor that was worth selling. His feeling was that once you got beyond the 12 HP 38" deck the snappers were not up to par. I see he has several 16,18,and 20HP simplicity clones in snapper colors now sitting on his floor.
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John, I'm surprised they didn't have something larger worth selling before. They had some models in the late 90's with 2 speed hydros and large Kohler Command twins and Magnum twins, they even had a powermax sized snapper, I've only seen them on backs of walk behind brochures and never found any other info on them, maybe they were priced to high and never sold many.
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Progression of events Simplicty mfg. buys Snapper. Simplicity CEO tells Walmart to go fly a kite, no more under priced Snappers. Briggs & Stratton buys Simplicity.
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